Posted on 06/09/2015 8:40:15 PM PDT by richardb72
Since 1991, murder and violent crime have plummeted in the U. S. But in a widely discussed op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled "The New Nationwide Crime Wave,” Heather Mac Donald recently made a startling claim: “Gun violence in particular is spiraling upward in cities across America.” She demonstrated this by citing murder rate increases in six cities.
Murders of police were also surging out of control, she said; they had “jumped 89% in 2014."
Last week, Mac Donald, the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at New York’s Manhattan Institute appeared on numerous TV channels, including Fox News and CNN. As is so common, the claims have become exaggerated, giving the impression that crime is on the rise all across the U.S.
Fortunately, that’s all hype. Mac Donald simply cherry-picked those places that had experienced rising crime rates. Overall, the 15 largest cities have actually experienced a slight decrease in murders. There has been a 2 percent drop from the first five months of 2014 to the first five months of this year. Murder rates rose in eight cities and fell in seven. There is no nationwide murder wave. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It’s one very specific subset of the population. And almost no one will say it publicly.
L
It’s those darn Americans.
Thank Providence for truth tellers like John Lott.
“Gun Crime” is largely an urban, Democrat, “gun controlled” city issue, in specific neighborhoods with specific demographics. In the rest of the CCW areas of the country, as far as “gun crime” is concerned, we are pretty much like Canada.
Its a plot—to make a crisis and cancel the elections so Obama can rule for a 3rd Term—OR—Obama may appoint Hillary President (or stuff the ballot boxes) so she can continue his work and pardon him for his many crimes. She will pick a Latino or Black as VP (token) to get the black votes/Latino Votes. That and a bit of ACORN Fraud and she’s in. BUT can she rule??? Kiss your guns goodbye! Kiss your doctor goodbye as well as Obamacare morphs into Hillarycare. Those who object will be hunted down as Terrorists and jailed. Fox News will be a thing of the past. Rush will have “heart Failure” So will Ted Cruz and sarah Palin.Do what you want now because in five years The new People’s Republic will be in control—maybe I need to switch to decaf.
Why not tell us what the national murder rate was so readers can see and compare all the data for themselves?
The headline says “police killings are not up.” But police killings were, in fact, up 89% in 2014, just like Heather MacDonald claimed. John Lott claims that is because 2013 had an unusually low rate of police murders. But, Lott cherry-picks a ten year average to support that claim, and once again does not give us enough data to evaluate his claim.
Finally, after assuring us that 2013 was an aberrational low in police murders, Lott says police murders in 2015 are down 38%. But, in fact, the 2015 rate is almost exactly the same as the 2013 rate, which Lott just told us cannot be used as a comparison because it's too low.
Lott's manipulation of the data in this article is at least as bad as what he condemns Heather MacDonald for.
What agenda are you pushing?
Picking the top 15 largest cities, is not cherry picking. That is what MacDonald did.
The national homicide rate is at near 50 year lows, and has been for a few years.
If 2015 police murders dropped from 2014, they dropped, just as you claim 2014 went up from 2013.
Police murder numbers tend to be low and jump around because they are few.
Lott did not say 2013 numbers cannot be used for a comparison, because they are so low, he said that is why 2014 seems so high.
So when Lott says 2013 was exceptionally low, then says 2015 numbers have dropped. You say that the 2015 numbers are about the same as the 2013 numbers. That is entirely consistent with what Lott says.
The law officer deaths by firearms in 2013 were the lowest since 1887. Here is a link:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/30/law-enforcement-deaths/4247393/
You can see how much the numbers vary year to year in the graph.
Here are law officers killed by gunfire 2004-2014. You can see that 2013 is exceptionally low, the lowest on the list. But 2014 is also low. There are only two years lower than 2014 since 2004, those are 2013 and 2008.
2014 - 47
2013 - 31
2012 - 48
2011 - 68
2010 - 59
2009 - 47
2008 - 41
2007 - 67
2006 - 51
2005 - 53
2004 - 56
Officers killed by gunfire is the better metric here, since MacDonald is pushing the claim that “Gun violence is spiraling upward”
Here is the source for the data:
http://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2004
Re: “What agenda are you pushing?”
The “Show Me The Data” agenda. Heather MacDonald’s essay is behind the WSJ pay wall, so I can only find excerpts. But her message is obvious - the Black American murder rate is up, and Black American violent attacks on Police are up.
In America, the murder rate is always about Blacks.
Non-Hispanic white Americans commit murder at only a slightly higher rate than white citizens of Switzerland.
Non-Hispanic white Americans commit assault with a deadly weapon at only a slightly higher rate than white citizens of England.
Re: “Picking the top 15 largest cities, is not cherry picking. That is what MacDonald did.”
No - MacDonald picked six cities where Blacks make up 25% to 80% of the population. Lott picked cities like San Jose, which is 3% Black.
Re: “You say that the 2015 numbers are about the same as the 2013 numbers. That is entirely consistent with what Lott says.”
Lott calls 2013 “unusual.” You say 2013 was the lowest in more than a hundred years. Since 2015 is running at almost the same rate as 2013, that should make 2015 an aberration, too.
“Lott calls 2013 “unusual.” You say 2013 was the lowest in more than a hundred years. Since 2015 is running at almost the same rate as 2013, that should make 2015 an aberration, too.”
I have a hard time believing that you are trying to make the fact that both 2013 and 2015 are very low years for police firearm homicides, as somehow supporting MacDonalds thesis that police homicides are spiking.
The fact that the 2015 numbers are falling back to the 2013 number, which were exceptionally low, exactly illustrates what Lott was showing, that police homicides are *not* rising at an alarming rate.
Lott’s contention that the 2013 numbers where an aberration was never a contention on his part that those numbers were somehow invalid or should be discounted, merely that they were unusually low and caused the numbers in 2014 to appear much larger when measured as a percentage increase over the previous (2013) year than they otherwise would have.
Likewise, to try and argue that he and we should discount the 2015 numbers because they are similar to the 2013, which he described as aberrational, is a mischaracterization of his use of term, and dishonest slight of hand on your part. Again, Lott never claimed that the numbers for 2013 were somehow irrelevant or, should be ignored because they were so unusually low, but rather that their unusually low number made the 2014 numbers appear high when measured as a percentage increase over the previous year, when in fact the raw numbers for 2014 were actually in line with averages over the past 10 years.
To misuse his use of the word aberrational to argue that he and we should ignore the data for 2015 is extremely flawed and dishonest reasoning on your part.
I agreed that MacDonald cherry-picked the surge in 2014.
I said that Lott cherry-picked 2015, another aberrational year so far, trying to prove that police murders are returning to a mean, when, in fact, they have almost returned to a hundred year low.
Lott doesn’t use the word “aberrational.” I use it. Lott calls 2013 “unusual.”
The numbers in 2015 are running almost as low 2013.
In other words, the 2015 numbers through May are almost at a hundred year low.
I pointed out an obvious flaw in Lott’s thinking.
If it is unfair for MacDonald to use 2014 to show a dramatic increase in police murders, then it is also unfair for Lott to use 2015, which is trending at a hundred year low, to show a dramatic decrease in police murders.
It is all about context. I do not think that Lott is saying that the change from 2014 to 2015 is “dramatic”. He is showing that in context, there is no huge increase in police killings. The numbers jump around a lot because the numbers are small.
He is just pointing out that taking one years change is out of context.
How else is he supposed to show that MacDonald is lying with statistics? He has limited time to do it. It is not as if he has time to school the audience in the whole “How to lie with Statistics” course.
Yes, you are right. I was incorrect in attributing the word “aberration” to Lott. My apologies.
Nevertheless, Lott’s use of 2015 to support his thesis is different from McDonald’s use of 2014 to support her thesis. Lott is looking at the raw numbers for 2015. MacDonald is not. She is making the argument that the 2014 numbers are high, not based on comparing them to historical averages, but by comparing them to 2013’s numbers, which as Lott pointed out, were historically low.
Lott was not arguing that we should ignore the numbers for a given year, just that we have to be careful about how we interpret those numbers, and the conclusions we draw, especially when using statistics. MacDonald’s use of statistical analysis to draw conclusions about 2014 was flawed and misleading. Lott was essentially saying, if you’re going to use 2014 to support your thesis, then you need to tell the whole story. The raw numbers were not as historically high as she lead the reader to believe, but appeared so when compared statistically with 2013, a year whose numbers WERE historically low.
Not sure how that involves me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.